i am havin the exact same problem and am starting explorer manually.i want to reinstall xp back over it becuase vista is not worht the hassle.all i want is a working os.my problem now is my dvd drive is not showing up in explorer and i also cant boot from a disc at startup.i cant find a driver for my dvd drive.it worked two days ago on vista drivers.help

Dell Inspiron 1501,
512 ram,
DVD/CD Rom Drive:TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-L632d

My E-mail is dean.flashjr@gmail.com